Category Archives: Firmly Rooted

Making Love Real

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We have been given everything in abundance, and it was all free gift, but it will cost us our hearts. “Owe nothing to anyone–except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.” (Romans 13:8) This gratitude that is our only right response to the Giver will bend us to carry the burdens of others, will push us into uncomfortable places, and pull us out of ourselves till we begin to look like our Savior more and more. It’s what happens when our hearts become completely God’s. It’s the way love really works.

It’s the way His real Love works in us.

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That thundering question of Where is God? Is best answered when the people of God offer a hand and whisper: Here I am….when the people of God tear everything else away and take the time to show it: Here’s His love for you – beating right here, right here in me, right here for you. (Ann VosKamp)

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Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)

Three Cheers for the Tortoise

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I have always thought perseverance is the boring virtue. I mean, let’s face it: love is beautiful…gentleness has a soft warm glow to it…integrity is noble and strong…even patience has a certain sense of satisfaction to it. But perseverance is just ordinary. Keeping on with the everyday of what you’ve been given, and then doing it all again tomorrow. Even when it’s hard. Even when no one notices. Even when it’s not where you want to be.  Perseverance is a slow steady progress that is easy to disparage. It’s like in Aesop’s old story about the tortoise and the hare, where the fast hare is so confident in his abilities to win that he doesn’t even take the race seriously.

And really, who wants to be like the tortoise in the story? No one wants to keep plodding along slow and steady when there are others out there flashing by, to the cheers of the crowd. (And wouldn’t we all rather have life come easily, with plenty of time to play in the meadow and take naps?) Sure, the tortoise won the race, but it wasn’t even through any skill or cleverness or strength on his part. All he had to do was keep on going. Anyone could have beaten the hare with that kind of mindset.

But of course that is precisely the point. Visible skill means nothing if it makes you careless. Confidence and charm are pointless if you are going to quit running in favor of indulging yourself, before you hit the finish line. In the long run the character quality of perseverance may matter more than buckets of talent and ability, and not just in results. God says it’s actually a matter of who you are becoming on the inside.

Specifically, God says dull old perseverance is a building block of our character. When life gets tough and we find that things don’t come naturally to us, we get to choose whether to run away or to face the difficulty and let Him use it to grow us. The Apostle Paul drew a straight line to connect our hard times to building strength of character, and he encouraged the young believers this way: “…we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” (Romans 5:3-4) It is that nitty-gritty virtue of perseverance that makes the difference. “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5) Perseverance is the holding-on strength that takes us from the growing process to the future good we will experience. And it comes through the Holy Spirit at work in us with His power, just like all the other virtues. I need the help, because my own determination wears out after awhile, especially when life gets difficult and complicated.

Perseverance is what makes you give grace to that person and try to communicate better, to work together, instead of walking away….even though your heart is hurting. Because healthy relationships matter.

Perseverance makes you clean up one more mess….drag yourself out of bed one more time….listen to one more story of playground drama… when what you really want is just eight solid hours of sleep, or a quiet cup of coffee on the porch. Because you know parenting little people is worth it.

Perseverance is what keeps you praying long and hard until you have God’s answer. No matter how long it takes. Because you trust His love and His power and His timing.

Perseverance pushes you to face another day of the same old thing: of errands and phone calls and workday and chores that will need to be done again tomorrow. Acting in faith that all these things matter in the long run. Because these hidden acts of service laid down with love and prayer are building a home and nurturing lives that will last beyond this world.

I guess the older I get, the more I value the simple virtue of slow and steady progress. Perseverance is about focus and commitment– being willing to make many small right choices over and over, because you have your eyes out ahead on a bigger goal. It’s having faith that all those smaller, more boring choices are adding up to something wonderful just because God says so. It is simple obedience in the everyday, according to Paul: “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Colossians 3:17)

So hang in there and keep on going– as old Aesop the storyteller said, “slow and steady wins the race.” And this Faith-race, above all, is worth winning.

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For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8)

Take Heart

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As the sun warms and life quickens, here in early Spring…as the icy hold of death is cracked loose, slips away like a dark dream in the face of bright dawn arising…as we turn our faces toward Resurrection Day, there is this Word for all those holding onto hope:

“Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of His great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing….how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles?…how can you say God ignores your rights? Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of His understanding….He will feed His flock like a shepherd. He will carry the lambs in His arms, holding them close to His heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young.” (Isaiah 40:26-28, 11)

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Courage is what is elemental to living — composed of two parts fierce hope, and one part wild believing.
It’s hope that can create a quake that cracks all despair.
It’s hope that stands in your dark with a lamp lit with prayers.
And it isn’t the likelihood of your hope that sustains you, but the object of your hope that sustains you.
We lay our hope, full and tender, into the depths of Him.

Ann Voskamp

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All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust

Beautiful Things, Gungor

The Weight of Glory

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A mother bears all this weight. Of love that was born with the swell of her changing body. Of responsibility that flooded over, the moment she accepted this fragile bundle into her arms for the first time, and felt the tug of helpless need and the certainty that another life would be shaped by her own. Of fierce protection that rises from nowhere to transform even the meek into warriors. Of fear and worry and care crashing down with the realization that the world is not a safe place– so many things a woman cannot control– and it’s one thing to swim for your own life, but another to send a babe afloat into the unknown. It’s humbling to bend under this weight of motherhood. It could be crushing, if you had to carry it alone.

Bowing down under all this weight is where I learned how big is the One who carries me. Because if I cannot trust Him fully to carry me, and bring me safely Home, how can I trust Him to carry my precious little ones, and do all things well for them? Despite the weight, there is peace in knowing that “underneath are the Everlasting Arms.” (Deuteronomy 33:27)

Bowing down under all this weight teaches you to shape worries into prayers, and moments into growth opportunities for both of you. Under this weight you learn to feel God’s love and forgiveness and grace. Under this weight you learn just where your limitations and weaknesses lie, and learn to depend on the One who has none. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary…” (Isaiah 40:31)…. at least enough to get through another day. And when the burden gets so heavy it is breaking your heart, that’s where a depth of worship can grow, when you learn to say “Blessed be the name of the Lord” through the tears. Sometimes it is miracle enough to “walk and not faint.”

So we keep on, because how could we ever stop? These children are woven from our own flesh and bone, and fill up our whole hearts. Mothers are meant to carry this weight, and to be carried by the Everlasting Arms, and He says the burden “is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” if we fasten our eyes on the things that are unseen and do not lose heart. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

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You will return all that’s been stolen–
There’s nothing that You can’t redeem.
And though the story’s still unfolding,
With everything I’ve seen
How could I not believe?
You are a promise keeper;
Your word will never fail.
My heart can trust You, Jesus;
I won’t be overwhelmed.
My eyes are gonna see
Miracles and victories–
You are a promise keeper,
And Your word will never fail.

Hope Darst

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He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

Isaiah 40:11

Drawing a Picture of God

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It’s sad, really, how we let the circumstances shape our view of God. As if He had not already spent thousands of years revealing Himself in a myriad of tiny details and grand sweeping plans. As if He had not breathed Words into the hearts of men to speak to us in our own language, even wrapping Himself in flesh to walk among us– all so we could know Him.

And yet, serving gets difficult and we think “Maybe God doesn’t want me to do this any more.” Sickness hangs on and we say “God is punishing me.” Provision doesn’t come when we ask, and we wonder “Is God listening?…does He care about my need?” And before we realize it, we have looked at the circumstances and drawn our own outlines for who God is; framed Him in, with the small scope of our emotions and everyday experience. When I think about it that way, I see the deception from the Garden being acted out all over again, setting how we feel and what we see up higher than what God actually says. It’s just bad art to try to sketch an infinite Creator.

When serving gets difficult, God says, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Colossians 3:17) When sickness lingers and prayers seem unanswered, God says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (John 9:3) When needs pinch, and fear rises, God replies, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” (Matthew 6:31) His power and provision are endless. His love more boundless than oceans. This is the picture Heaven draws of the Creator.

We could blame our faulty outlines on a fallen world: two plus two equals four, and doing good should be easy, and what I can see and feel is clearly real…it’s a blind reasoning that ignores the weight of Divine evidence to the contrary. But how frightening to see my mind conforming to the pattern of this world and ignoring Grace. Devastating to see into even well-meaning hearts, and find them fully planted in the center of the universe as if they had a right to be there. As if they had never read God’s own description of who He is, or at least had never let the words soak in deeper than skin.

God talks about that too, of course: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9) He sees into all the twists and turns of my emotions and motivations quite clearly, and will show it to me if I really want to know, really want to change. The question is if I am willing to face up to His truth and trust what He is doing in my life. Can I let Him be unmeasurable and beyond understanding and not at all tame, because I know He is most deeply good? Times like this make me realize just how amazing His Grace is, and how very deep and wide and long is God’s love for us. Time to put down the inkpen and let Him do the drawing.

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A thousand times I’ve failed–
Still your mercy remains,
And should I stumble again,
I’m caught in your grace.

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades;
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame;
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out, O my soul cries out….

Inside Out, Hillsong

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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
    and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Proverbs 9:10

Just to Make God Smile

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It was an innocent enough question, tossed out into the discussion in a small group, half for fun and half out of curiousity….until it was coming around the circle and it was my turn and the question was sticking in my throat: What does God like about you? Not the things you do but who you are, and that’s the problem right there, when you know for sure that He loves you but you’ve never even considered that He may actually like you too. I choked out something that may have made sense, about the particular way He has made me, but all I could think of was how those same qualities are things people don’t like about me, so how could I imagine He would?

The question is still reverberating in me…What do You like about me, You who made the many-colored fishes in the deepest sea for Your eyes only, and the giraffe with the graceful neck and the ridiculous eyelashes, and the wombats and the wolverines, the lion king, and the little brown sparrow. Because if you made all of them, so varied and amazing in their differences down to the last detail, purely for Your enjoyment and ours, then You surely delight in all the different people You made too. What do you like about me?

These musings keep coming back to the starting place: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (Psalm 139:13-14) So if You made me just because You wanted me, then the details of who I am are all Your idea, Your craftsmanship. Not only loved, but delighted in….wonderful… and made on purpose. It’s not about how I see myself at all, but about Your delight. Granted, some of your creations are more humorous than noble, and some are downright ugly and strange, but even in them there is something You enjoy, as they live in Your world and respond to You as Creator.

I wonder how life would change if we could learn not to define ourselves with the opinions of others; not spend so much time trying to be happy and significant, doing our best to measure up, just to make it through this world in one piece. If we really had the deep sense that the reason we are here is to delight the heart of our Maker and respond to Him in pure devotion and thanksgiving. If we lived the way He made us… and just to make Him smile.

So what does God like about you?

…your heart of compassion for “the least of these”?
…your sense of humor?
…the way you can focus on a task and complete it well?
…that you love to cook for people and make them feel welcome?
…your willingness to help out wherever needed?
…your boldness to dream big?
…that you see and appreciate the beautiful things He has made?
….or?……..

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It’s all about You, Jesus,
And all this is for You,
For Your glory and Your fame,
It’s not about me,
As if You should do things my way;
You alone are God, and I surrender.

Kari Jobe

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See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

1 John 3:1

Merry Christmas

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Life changes: children grow, people move on, circumstances shift– but God’s Beloved Son who came at Christmas remains unchanging. May the light of Christ shine in your heart and in your home this Christmas Day, and in the coming year.

Hallelujah, we’ve been found
A child is born to save us now
Hallelujah, light has come
A Savior who will set us free
A promise for those who believe.

Barlow Girl

Relentless Love

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We sing this song like always, the words on the screen… “You won’t relent until You have it all…my heart is Yours.” Funny how we can sing without really listening to what we are saying. And I can hear Him whisper in my spirit, “Do you mean it? Can I have your children? Your health? Your marriage?” 

It’s a bit frightening to know the truth: God is not nearly as tolerant as we’d like to think He is, and His kind of love is more like an inexorable force of nature, as wild and overwhelming as any tidal wave, and quite determined to have every last bit of our hearts. So much of what we label as life’s stresses and difficulties are really His shaking us loose from life altogether, so that our hearts will be His alone. “For there is a love that is as strong as death, jealousy demanding as the grave…”

Something in us longs for that kind of exclusive intensity in love– the media industry thrives on it–but we feel more comfortable with it in the physical world, where we can experience it with the senses. What if all that is only a shadow of the spiritual world and the total surrender our hearts long for is meant for Someone much bigger?

The author of Hebrews said it this way: “Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe.  For our God is a devouring fire.” (Hebrews 12:28-29) We don’t like to talk about that much, maybe because it sounds contradictory, the thankful worship and the fear of fire… but when the world is shaken loose from its moorings it should come to mind readily. Everything here can be shaken loose– must be shaken loose– so that we have our hands and hearts free to grasp the Kingdom that cannot ever be shaken, and God’s holy fire is quite willing to burn it all, in order to leave you with what matters most. He loves you, but He is Wind and Earthquake and Fire and Lion, and we would do well not to forget it. “…and many waters cannot quench this love….” Relentless. Be careful what you sing, because the truth you know in your head must needs be worked out in your heart and your life, if it is going to last forever.

“Come be the fire inside of me, come be the flame upon my heart…until You and I are one.” When you find the pearl of great value, would you not spend everything you have to gain it, as the merchant did in Jesus’ story? To be honest, it terrifies me sometimes, but as Peter said “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) It is so worth it, in the long run.

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Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life—the work which he loves, though in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child—he will take endless trouble—and would doubtless, thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and re-commenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumb-nail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.

CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain

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Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart  and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:25-26

The Most Important Holiday

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Here at the brink of Easter the world teeters on the brink between death and life: fuzzy baby animals and pastel colors rioting everywhere against the matted brown remnants of Winter. And a person could feel overwhelmed at the rubble of brokenness, at all the things that don’t work right in this world. There isn’t one of us who hasn’t felt the weight of Adam’s curse in ways large and small, and maybe that’s why we plunge so eagerly into the glut of the calendar holidays, to forget just for awhile the aches and pains, the way relationships can get so tricky, the masks we wear and the walls we hide behind, all the little distractions that tangle around the feet of those who run. But here just before Easter Sunday (if you have the eyes to see it) life and death hang in the balance.

And here at Easter is the crux of the matter– all the Earth’s history and future summed up, condensed into one wrenching weekend. The world that was spoken into existence by God’s Word and broken by man’s rebellion lives in feverish denial of its sickness and in dread of death to come. The eternal living Word that entered our world dies at its hands (carrying all of its brokenness on His shoulders), and then just walks out of it again. And God’s creation groans and heaves in the cataclysm. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) Here at the cross, life and death lay at Jesus’ feet. Jesus is living proof that there is nothing that God’s love and forgiveness cannot accomplish for us.

Easter is the one holiday we need to remember all year. Death is not the same terrible enemy. And Life is not the same futile effort. Now all of God’s promises to us are coming true in Jesus. Now there is always Hope. “I…pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 1:19-20)

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Great is Your faithfulness, oh God;
You wrestle with the sinner’s heart.
You lead us by still waters and to mercy,
And nothing can keep us apart.
So remember Your people,
Remember Your children,
Remember Your promise, oh God…
Your grace is enough for me.

Matt Maher

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‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.  I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’

Ezekiel 37:4-6

Of Eggs and Lambs and Waiting for Easter

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I almost missed what the preacher said, right there in the middle of the music and the Lord’s Supper. “We don’t know how broken we are. And we don’t know how loved we are.”  It wasn’t until the next day that it sank in deep enough to feel, and it pierced right through into the Humpty-Dumpty heart of me.

Here in the middle of Lent, with the cross set before us, we are taking time to face our own sin. Our self-indulgence, our lack of love, our pride, our vain ambition for things that are passing away. And maybe the worst part of our sorrow, in the most honest quiet moments, is the dim realization that no matter how much we can look at our brokenness, God sees more. Not just a matter of what we can know, but a matter of moral capacity…how much we are able to fathom, to feel, to bear in our spirits. He is the only One who understands just how diseased we are– the bone-deep fragility of men and women afflicted with sin. We are without excuse, without remedy, without hope even on our best days, although most of us have learned to cover up nicely, or at least distract ourselves from what we cannot put together again.

The Prophet Isaiah puts it out there in livestock terms: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way…” (Isaiah 53:6) We may not have much personal experience with sheep, but anyone who has ever tried to shepherd a group of more than five children on an outing can grasp the general idea. I think it’s safe to assume that sheep are never fully aware of their path, or where it is leading them, or just how dangerous it is for them to be out there alone. I heard someone say once that “It’s not that sheep are stupid…it’s just that they are completely defenseless.” Indeed.

I have no defenses against the selfishness and death that eat away at my life, nor any defense in the face of the standards that I can’t measure up to. But Isaiah finishes his thought...”and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”  My sin-disease and personal culpability laid fully on Someone Else big enough to bear both– on Jesus, the one Isaiah said was “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.” (Isaiah 53:7)

In the middle-gray land of March, halfway between death and life, there is time to hear the Love that calls us. And isn’t that what we all need here, when we are looking death in the face?…To see beyond its wretched ugliness and finality, into the eyes of the Beloved One, who carries our death on His own shoulders, lays it into the ground, and leaves it there? “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering…” (Isaiah 53:4) 

Here in the middle of Lent, the only way we will even be able to face the rubble inside is if we can also see Love’s glorious broken body standing in the middle of it.  “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)

And I have no defense against Love like this.

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Forty days, I am reflecting on my cross, my sins….Looking hard for release from this messy body of death. And there is Jesus. Jesus with a crown of thorns. Jesus bent low, God carrying my rotting mess, Grace doing what I cannot do, and I cannot ascend to God but He will descend to me….
Jesus will have to do everything. He will have to accomplish it all. I am ashes and I am dust and I am in dire need and Lent has given me clear eyes to see my sin and I am the one broken under all this skin.

Ann VosKamp

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We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes–
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest.
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets
when I think about the way
He loves us…
Oh how He loves us.

John Mark McMillan